Almost every pitcher who has started at least two games for the Texas Tech baseball team in 2011 has recorded at least one quality start.

Almost every pitcher who has started at least two games for the Texas Tech baseball team in 2011 has recorded at least one quality start.

A quality start is defined as one where a pitcher throws a minimum of six innings and gives up three earned runs or fewer. The Red Raiders have seven of those starts, and have won six of the seven.

The problem is none of them have come in back-to-back games, and aside from left-hander Robbie Kilcrease, no pitcher has put forth consecutive quality starts. That inconsistency is a big reason why the Red Raiders (19-11, 4-5 in Big 12) again occupy the bottom of the Big 12 Conference rankings in ERA, where they’ve finished in five of the last six seasons.

“Just to be honest, I’m not sure it has anything to do with consistency or being consistent,” said Kilcrease, who will start Sunday in the finale of this weekend’s three-game Big 12 series against No. 6 Texas A&M (22-7, 7-2). “It’s about being out in different environments and expecting different things. We had an 18-game home stand (to start the season) and we’re used to our field. It’s learning how to pitch to guys and you’re starting to see some of the younger guys struggle in games, but we’ve got to mature on the run.”

Indeed, youth could be a part of it. Of the seven quality starts, Kilcrease, a redshirt junior, owns four of them. The others come from injured left-hander Daniel Coulombe, sophomore right-hander Jamen Parten and freshman right-hander Trey Masek, all of whom are in their first year competing at the Division I level.

By comparison, five of the top six starters in the Big 12 going into this week are juniors or seniors with at least 1-2 years of Division I experience under their belts. This weekend Tech will start two true freshmen and a junior, while the Aggies will counter with two juniors and a sophomore, all of whom played key roles last season.

“I think the biggest thing is for the young guys, it’s just inexperience and then getting on the road and being on the road and coming back and tinkering with things that worked this weekend and maybe didn’t work last week,” head coach Dan Spencer said.

“Some of it now, we’re getting to the point where it falls on the kid to give us an opportunity every weekend, and consistency is the first thing. That’s the difference between a freshmen and sophomores and freshmen and juniors is as a junior they’re going to be more consistent.”

The frustrating part of the equation is all of Tech’s starters have been close to consecutive quality starts. Parten has two starts where he gave up three earned runs or fewer but did not make it past the fifth inning. The same with Masek and his start against Nebraska two weeks ago.

Conversely, the Red Raiders have just as many efforts from their starters where they didn’t last past the fourth inning, and have allowed four runs or more in five of those starts.

At this point, however, there are few options to try and change the pattern. That has led to Tech again ranking 10th in the Big 12 with a 5.45 ERA, but the ironic part of that is if the season ended today it would be Tech’s best ERA since 2006 and would be the first time in four seasons it’s been below 6.

It will be a challenge, Spencer said, to keep the scores low this weekend as A&M comes to Lubbock with the top-ranked pitching staff in the league, boasting a 2.01 ERA. The Aggies also rank first in fewest walks allowed (56) and are third in strikeouts (236).

That’s a tough matchup for a Tech offense that is coming off one of its worst offensive weekends of the season. The Red Raiders scored just seven runs in being swept last week at Oklahoma.

“The Oklahoma series was tough as a team but we can play much better than that,” outfielder Nick Hanslik said. “We need to play like we did against Baylor and Nebraska and get a good quality weekend against a good club. We’ve just got to stay within ourselves and play the game like we know how.”